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Kato Emrys was fucked.

He gave one last heave against the ropes before his body gave out.

Shards, he was so, so fucked …

But hey, at least he had time, here , tied up on the ground of the old palace stable, to re-evaluate his life choices in flagrantly self-flagellating detail.

Specifically, the choices that had led him to this particular pile of shit.

He hadn’t lived the most charitable life.

He’d had fun. A lot of fun. Usually at someone else’s expense.

A full accounting of every questionable decision, every careless or cruel distraction he’d indulged in since his fall from grace just wasn’t practical—especially given the current constraints on his life expectancy.

Ropes bound his hands and feet behind him, his aether was nearly gone. He was also pretty sure he was lying in a literal pile of horse shit—the Universe did love its irony. Thankfully, his nose was so twisted and broken that he had no sense of smell left to confirm.

Sand and gravel scraped against his cheek, sticking to the sheen of blood on his skin as he tried to rise, tried to lift himself—only to fall back, panting.

There was a collar around his neck, made of something translucent and heavy.

It was a weight that kept him pinned to the ground.

Cold like ice, he could feel its strangeness creeping like hoarfrost beneath his skin.

The numbness was slowly locking up his body.

Vaughn jumped him not long after Skye wandered off.

Kato was tending the horses when the first blow came—a fist to the back of the neck.

He tried to fight back and got in a few good shots too.

But Vaughn had the advantage, the numbers.

Carin whispered the most miserable little “sorry” as she tied him up.

And then they’d left him. To die presumably, or maybe they’d be back. He wasn’t sure he cared at this point. He just wished the Universe would stop dragging this out.

He’d tried to break free. Couldn’t. Fuck, he could barely lift his head. He was a shadow mage, and yet all his mighty strength had failed him. He’d be dead once the shades found their way inside the stable. And from the growing noise, that moment was coming sooner rather than later.

It was still distant but getting closer.

A steady rhythm of growling, gurgling, and shuffling footsteps that kept circling, and circling.

.. They’d already spooked the horses, who, at the first sudden ear-splitting yowl that signified something horrible was approaching, had broken from their stalls and half-trampled him on their way out.

So, yes—Kato was fucked. And he didn’t see a way to get un-fucked. Not without a miracle or hell, he’d even settle for some funny, clichéd twist where he woke up suddenly, safe and warm in his bed because, hey, it was all a dream.

He blinked.

Blinked again, harder this time, really squeezing his eyes shut just in case.

Still no luck.

“Stupid, idiot brother…” Kato tugged weakly at the knots around his wrists. The ropes bit into his skin, every pull a reminder of how useless the effort was. “Last time I ever try to do anything nice...”

It had all been a mistake. Going to Kalahad. Helping Skye. Believing, even for a second, that a brother was anything more than a stranger with a little shared blood.

He shouldn’t even have been a part of this. None of it was his fight. Skye had just shown up with those stupid, sad eyes and that tired sob story about a lost love. And Kato, like the fool he was, had let it get to him. He’d let himself care .

That was the real mistake. And now he was paying for it.

Nobody was coming. Kato knew that much. They’d been played—the only question was by whom.

Did Kalahad know? Had they been sent into this on purpose? Did someone see him coming and laugh at how easy it was to string him along? Kato could almost hear it, the mockery in their voices. Let the bastard think he’s helping. Let him bleed out in the dirt like the fool he is.

What if they killed Skye? What if he was already dead? Was that on him—for never learning? For always trusting the wrong people?

Kato shoved the thought down. Hard.

No. Skye had walked into this willingly. If their mother wanted someone to blame, she could look at her golden boy—not the fool who got dragged along for the ride.

“My god, you are intent on burying yourself in self-pity.”

Kato froze, breath tight in his chest.

A woman’s voice, full of light and amusement. He’d know it anywhere. There wasn’t a single part of him that would ever forget.

Carefully, he opened bruised, swollen eyelids. He searched the stable, looking up and down the rows of empty stalls, each one delineated by a wall of rotting wood capped with a cage of rusted iron. Until he got to the far end of the main aisle and the woman standing there.

“I’m dead, aren’t I?” he said weakly.

Sarah gave a soft, secret smile from where she stood in the shadows. She looked just like he remembered, exactly the same as when he’d last seen her struggling to hold back tears in the apartment they had shared.

Dark hair, dark eyes, freckled skin. She was tall and thin, with barely enough ass to make a proper cushion (her words).

She had always said she wasn’t beautiful.

Always insisted he was wrong when he tried to argue otherwise.

After a while, he’d decided she must be blind because when she smiled…

when she smiled, she made the whole damn room light up.

Sarah .

He craned his head to see her, watching as she took a step, then another, bare feet moving whisper-soft through the dirt without stirring it.

Everything else faded as she knelt beside him, the folds of her dress pooling around her. He had always loved it when she wore white. Even more so when he knew she was wearing it for him.

“Kit,” she said with a gentle smile, brushing the hair from his face with equally gentle fingers. For a moment, he deluded himself into thinking he could feel it. “Why do you keep dreaming about me?”

Kato let his head drop. That small, stupid hope that had flared to life died just as quickly. “You’re not real,” he rasped. He wasn’t dead, and she hadn’t waited for him.

“I’m just a memory,” she said. “Something your mind conjured when you couldn’t bear to be alone.” Those phantom fingers continued to stroke his head. “But you already knew that. The same way you already know why you came here. You’re just too afraid to admit it.”

He choked on a laugh, the pain crushing in on him like a vice. “I came here out of a misguided sense of altruism. The kid looked so pathetic… it made me forget just what he is.”

“And what is he?”

Kato spat, “He’s the little shit who stole everything.”

Her fingers paused. “You make it sound like he came into this world just to spite you.”

Kato’s laugh was sharp, humorless. “Didn’t he?”

“No one asks to be born.”

His jaw flexed. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t undo what he took. It sure as hell doesn’t bring you back.”

Sarah’s eyes found his, and Shards… he had always loved her eyes. Slightly uptilted; brown with little flecks of laughing green.

“ You sent me away, Kit,” she said, soft but firm. Amused. “If you need to hate him, fine. But pick a real reason. One of his failures. Not yours.”

That stung. Then again, the truth always did.

“Why are you here, Sarah? Did you come just to rub it in? To tell me that you could never love the man I am now?”

“Is that what you want me to tell you?”

It’s what she should have told him. That letter in his pocket became just a little heavier. Why had he kept it? Why had he let a little slip of paper uproot his entire life just so he could come to an island that was nothing but mud and muck?

“I’m happier without you.” The words made his stomach turn, but he forced a smile.

“I fuck who I want. I go where I want. I do and say whatever I want. You always tried to make me better. Kinder . You wanted me to use my station to try to change a world that doesn’t want to be changed.

But I found my freedom. I’m free now, and I’m happy, so you can just piss off. ”

Placing a hand on either side of his head, Sarah leaned forward until they were nose to nose. “Liar.”

“Judgmental bitch.”

Sarah laughed, smiling that damn smile that cut right through him. “Meanness, anger, and jest—that’s always how it is with you, isn’t it? When you’re afraid, you lash out—you joke, you snarl—anything but admit it.” She touched his face, and he felt it. He swore he felt it. “Oh, Kit…”

“Don’t call me that.”

But she whispered, “My dearest Kit,” as her fingers brushed gently down his cheek. “Why are you so afraid?”

“I’m not,” he insisted.

“But you are . You’ve given your loyalty to all the wrong people. Who’s to say it won’t happen again? Who’s to say it hasn’t already? What is it about you, you wonder, that makes it so easy for others to use you—then cast you aside the second you’ve served your purpose?”

Kato’s eyes stung, and the world began to blur. “I looked for you,” he said, because in the absence of meanness, anger, and jest, all he could do was deflect. “After my brother was born, I looked for you. I went to the mortal realm. To New York.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to shut out the memory of that bustling plaza—the way his heart had leapt at the first glimpse of her, breathless with joy, only to be gutted by despair a heartbeat later.

“You were married. You had children ,” he spat.

“You say that like it’s an accusation.”

Maybe it was. Maybe…

“I never stopped loving you,” he said, throat working. “Not for one moment. Are a few decades truly all it took for you to forget me? To stop loving me? Are mortal hearts really that fickle?”

Her lips twitched, and even that small ghost of a smile made the scant light inside the stable brighten. “When the love of my life told me that he didn’t want me in his anymore, I moved on. I kept living , and you don’t get to blame me for that. Not when you were the one making all the decisions.”

Sarah pushed to her feet, white skirts rustling on an imagined breeze. She stared down at him, at the bruises and lacerations on his skin, the rips in his armor, the blood pooling around him, more black than red in the predawn light.

She was fading. Her features wavered. Brown eyes lightened, the tilt of her mouth changed, and for a moment she was someone else entirely—someone he shouldn’t think about as much as he did.

“This isn’t what she wanted for you, Kit. When will you finally allow yourself to live again?”

Never , he wanted to say, but the word got stuck, snagged on an inkling of resolve he thought had long since withered. The… hope ? Yes, hope. That maybe there was still something worth trying for.

Kato breathed past the ache in his chest, tears welling. “Sarah, I—”

But when he looked up, she was already gone. He was alone in the dark.

The stable doors creaked open, letting in a thick shaft of moonlight that cut through the gloom. Kato’s eyelids fluttered, and he squinted against the brightness and the two shadows moving through it.

He heard voices, though the words were garbled. The blur of a man knelt beside him, his partner’s shadow leaning to peer over. A woman. She—held up a lantern, the light from the fire crystal inside illuminating their faces.

Skye.

And that was Taly behind him. Her face was more angular, and her eyes had a distinct glow that shone through the dimness. But it was her. She was alive .

Darkness edged in, and Kato gave himself over to it. He stopped fighting.

The kid had done it. His idiot brother found the girl—and then he’d come back.

Somebody had actually come back for him.

That was Kato’s last thought before he knew nothing at all.